Archie Morris - Taking Charge

Taking Charge

During season 13, Morris was hired as one of the ER's attending physicians (the slot left open by Dr. Clemente's departure). Morris began a serious effort to win respect. Though other doctors still did not always take him seriously, he showed a moment of both care and skill when he correctly interpreted a young man's alternating demands to be admitted and discharged as symptoms of dissociative identity disorder. However, other doctors laughed at Morris's diagnosis and refused to authorize critical care, and he privately admitted to Sam Taggart that he knew "most of the other ER staff think I'm a joke." Sam spoke kindly to him and used her communications skills to convince the patient to consent to life-saving treatment.

When new medical interns came to the ER, Morris's attention was caught by Hope Bobeck. Morris asked her out for dinner but she instead invited him to her Bible study group, as she was a born-again Christian (often praying while taking care of patients). Morris pretended to be as devout as she was, and Hope and Morris grew close to each other. In the Christmas episode City of Mercy, he got through a difficult shift as the only ER attending, and at the end of the day Hope told him how much she'd learned watching him. She then asked him out for drinks, with the implication of intimacy to follow. Morris declined, much to his own surprise, and Hope was left confused and disappointed. Morris and Hope later got involved with each other while helping to plan Luka and Abby's wedding. The two took advantage of a free honeymoon suite that Luka and Abby were not able to use and began pursuing a relationship. Morris was saddened when Hope left for a long volunteer stint in Venezuela, and they subsequently broke up. In Season 14, Morris discovers that his father has died, and laments to Abby that he and his dad never mended their long-broken relationship. He also fails his medical boards while Dr. Pratt passes them. Morris lies about his failure and asks Pratt to cover for him until he can take and pass his boards. Morris also underwent brief therapy sessions after a hostage situation he was involved in, where the armed man was gunned down right after he gave himself up. Another hard hit came when his friend Dr. Gregory Pratt was critically injured in an ambulance explosion and the ER staff was unable to save him. Morris took Dr. Pratt's death harder than anyone else in the ER. In the following weeks, he clashed numerous times with the new chief Catherine Banfield whom Morris resented upon her arrival, seeing that she holds the position his deceased friend had earned. In the following weeks, Morris got in trouble again, with Dr. Banfield for teaching new med student Chaz Pratt risky medical procedures that not even first year residents are qualified to perform. Morris admits that whenever he sees Chaz he sees his brother Greg, and only wants to do the best for him.

As Season 15 continues, Morris is shown to have matured a great deal following Pratt's death, becoming the senior figure for the doctors in the ER, much like Mark Greene and John Carter before him. In many instances, his co-workers come to him for both personal and professional advice. Specifically, Dr. Cate Banfield shares with him the fact that her young son died in the County ER, and Dr. Brenner admits to Morris that he was sexually abused as a child. In the episode Separation Anxiety, Morris becomes attracted to a female patient whom he later learns is an undercover narcotics cop (Claudia Diaz, played by Justina Machado). In the episode "I Feel Good", Morris tells Claudia that he plans to one day propose to her, which she says she would accept. Also, during this season, Morris is the first to whom new chief of the ER Catherine Banfield begins to open and, after a time of hostility between them, they develop a mutual respect for one another's skills. The depth of this respect was shown in Episode 7 when Banfield revealed to Morris that she had lost her son in County's ER.